Prison Poetry Workshop
27 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago -Sending radio waves through prison walls we reach an audience with content that may change their life. The Prison Poetry Workshop is the only national radio series linking prisoners to the outside world through the power of poetry. As we listen to these poems we realize they hold a deep significance to our understanding of American culture and its tradition of democratic arts.
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Episodes
PPW 20: Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 21 minutes - 14.5 MBPoet Cara Benson leads a powerful writing workshop at the Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in Saratoga County, New York. We listen in as a group of poets dig deep and create powerful work.
PPW 11: Broadside Press
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 13 minutes - 9.43 MBPoet, publisher, editor, and founder of Broadside Press. Dudley Randall was born 14 January 1914 in Washington, D.C., but moved to Detroit in 1920 where he founded the legendary Broadside Press. Broadside helped define the Black Arts movement and published Etheridge Knight’s Poems from Prison in 1968, bring prison poetry to a national audience.
PPW 12: Lomax’s and Prison Poetry
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 9 minutes - 6.45 MBAlan Lomax traveled the south visiting prisons and recording songs and interviews. Lomax was a great collector of folk music of the 20th century and invested his work on recording music that was disappearing from the American cultural landscape.
PPW 13: Workshop with Buzz Alexander
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 5 minutes - 3.45 MBWe asked poet Buzz Alexander of University of Michigan's Prison Creative Art Project to record a poetry workshop for us. Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audienc...
PPW 14: Lead Belly
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 10 minutes - 7.01 MBLead Belly was born Huddie William Ledbetter near Mooringsport, Louisiana around 1889. We explore Lead Belly's life in and out of prison. Take a listen.
PPW 15: Etheridge Knight
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 11 minutes - 8.08 MBEtheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison.
PPW 15: Workshop with Norbert Krapf
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 4 minutes - 3.08 MBWe asked poet Norbert Krapf to record a workshop for us. Check it out and then put pen to paper! Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience.
PPW 16: Birthing Behind Bars
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 10 minutes - 7.42 MBAngie shares her story about giving birth behind bars in New York.
PPW 17: Workshop with Victoria Sammartino
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 6 minutes - 4.28 MBVictoria Sammartino is the Founder and executive director of Voices UnBroken a Bronx-based non-profit organization that facilitates creative writing workshops with young people who are incarcerated/detained or in the foster care system. We asked Victoria to do a writing workshop for us. Check it out. Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth an...
PPW 19: Patrick Mathieu
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 9 minutes - 6.22 MBPatrick Mathieu is a New York city based artist who majored in dance at City College of New York and had a successful career as a performer. Then, one day, there was a knock on his door. Patrick shared his story of incarceration with the Prison Poetry Workshop and his journey both in and out of prison. Today, Patrick leads creative writing workshops on Rikers Island and at the Fortune Society.
PPW 24: Reginald Dwayne Betts
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 12 minutes - 8.74 MBWe sat with Reginald Dwayne Betts and listened as he shared his own story of incarceration and his ongoing process of becoming a writer and poet.
PPW 22: Living in the D.: Shaun Moore-Bey
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 6 minutes - 4.41 MBShaun Moore-Bey is a poet, activist, and regular on the Detroit spoken-word circuit. He is working to be a cultural force for his community.
PPW 21: Prison Creative Arts Project
April 14, 2020 21:00 - 12 minutes - 8.6 MBThe Prison Creative Art Project (PCAP) brings together artist from inside and outside the prison walls of Michigan to create a vibrant arts community. Navigating this process is the team of PCAP facilitators, who have an interesting history.
PPW 10: New Orleans
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 7 minutes - 5.2 MBJoin the Prison Poetry Workshop as we travel to New Orleans and join a group of prison poets who are taking on Walt Whitman.
PPW 03: Workshop with Kyes Stevens
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 5 minutes - 3.82 MBWe asked poet Kyes Steven of Auburn University's Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project to record a workshop for us. Take a listen. Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our list...
PPW 04: The Poets of San Quentin
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 10 minutes - 7.24 MBWe traveled to San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest prison, to learn about the lasting tradition of arts and spoken word in this well know institution.
PPW 05: Patrick Young Story
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 5 minutes - 3.65 MBWe met dozens of poets behind bars in our nation's prisons and we sat with formerly incarcerated people like Native New Orleanian, Patrick Young, who picked up pen and put it to paper finding their creative muse. Today, Young is an organizer and community educator, but his story is complicated. Join us in listening to it.
PPW 06: Judith, Spoon, and Elmo
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 18 minutes - 12.5 MBJudith Tannenbaum taught poetry in prisons across the United States and intensively at San Quentin and other California prisons through Arts-in-Corrections. While working at San Quentin she began a collaboration with Elmo Chatmann and Spoon Jackson that resulted in two books. Come learn about this unique exchange.
PPW 07: Free Minds Book Club
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 19 minutes - 13.3 MBOur time with Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop was powerful! D.C. youth who are shipped into the Federal prison system had little contact with home or educational opportunities until Free Minds arrived. We hear their stories and poetry. Check it out.
PPW 07: Free Minds Book Club
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 19 minutes - 13.3 MBOur time with Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop was powerful! D.C. youth who are shipped into the Federal prison system had little contact with home or educational opportunities until Free Minds arrived. We hear their stories and poetry. Check it out.
PPW 08: Randall Horton
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 10 minutes - 7.2 MBWe interviewed Randall Horton about his experience with incarceration and the process he underwent in becoming a poet. Randall Horton is the author of The Definition of Place and the Lingua Franca of Ninth Street, both from Main Street Rag. Randall is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award and most recently a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature. His creative and critical work has most recently appeared in Callaloo, Crab Orchard ...
PPW 08: Randall Horton
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 10 minutes - 7.2 MBWe interviewed Randall Horton about his experience with incarceration and the process he underwent in becoming a poet. Randall Horton is the author of The Definition of Place and the Lingua Franca of Ninth Street, both from Main Street Rag. Randall is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea Gonzalez Poetry Award and most recently a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Literature. His creative and critical work has most recently appeared in Callaloo, Crab Orchard ...
PPW 09: Workshop with Dwayne Betts
April 13, 2020 23:00 - 5 minutes - 3.95 MBWe asked poet & writer Dwayne Betts to record a workshop for us. Take a listen. Prison Poetry Workshop has asked poets from across the country to record a special workshop for our listeners. Feel free to play this series for incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated youth and adults and ask them to write their own poetry in response and send them to us. Responses may be posted on the Prison Poetry Workshop website and shared with our listening audience. This is amazing drop-in content for progr...
PPW 01: Alabama
April 13, 2020 22:00 - 13 minutes - 9.56 MBSit in any prison classroom or recreation room and ask: How many writers are in the room? How many people are writing rhymes or poems? Carefully-folded pieces of paper come out of pockets – words written in tightly stylized hand-writing. As we listen to these poems we realize they hold a deep significance to our understanding of American culture and its tradition of democratic arts. The Prison Poetry Workshop traveled to Alabama and met the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project, a part ...
PPW 02: Luis Rodriguez
April 13, 2020 22:00 - 11 minutes - 7.62 MBWriter and Latino activist Luis J. Rodriguez was born in El Paso and grew up in East L.A. We went to talk Luis Rodriguez simply because he, and his writing, was referenced by so many of the incarcerated writers we met and interviewed along the way to making Prison Poetry Workshop. The youth in D.C. central had thumbed copies of his best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and his name came up at facilities across the country. You can learn more about Rodriguez wr...
PPW 02: Luis Rodriguez
April 13, 2020 22:00 - 11 minutes - 7.62 MBWriter and Latino activist Luis J. Rodriguez was born in El Paso and grew up in East L.A. We went to talk Luis Rodriguez simply because he, and his writing, was referenced by so many of the incarcerated writers we met and interviewed along the way to making Prison Poetry Workshop. The youth in D.C. central had thumbed copies of his best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and his name came up at facilities across the country. You can learn more about Rodriguez wr...
PPW 01: Alabama
April 13, 2020 22:00 - 13 minutes - 9.56 MBSit in any prison classroom or recreation room and ask: How many writers are in the room? How many people are writing rhymes or poems? Carefully-folded pieces of paper come out of pockets – words written in tightly stylized hand-writing. As we listen to these poems we realize they hold a deep significance to our understanding of American culture and its tradition of democratic arts. The Prison Poetry Workshop traveled to Alabama and met the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Project, a part ...